In the past ten years, numerous cooking appliances have been developed which are equipped with on-board electronic displays and/or remote displays which provide textual or graphical information relative to the status of the food being cooked. In some cases, the temperature of the food being cooked is monitored over time and the temperature is displayed with respect to a target temperature set by the user. This information is displayed in many cases as a pair of numerical values or as a graph of temperature versus time. In other cases, the display provides a numerical cooking timer indicating the amount of time remaining until the product is expected to be done.
In addition, it has also been proposed that gas grills be equipped with semi-automated heating and/or cooking control systems which can be digitally connected to Smart devices such as tablets, cell phones, and the like. An example of one such system for an outdoor grill having three burners is shown and described in US2016/0037966 to Chin et. al. In the grill control system described in US 2016/0037966, it is necessary that each of the three individual burners contained in the grill be equipped with its own independent, automated electric control valve and temperature instrument system for controlling the rate of gas flow delivered to the burner.
As will be apparent, a primary disadvantage of using this prior art system for controlling grills having multiple burners is the excessive cost and complexity of having to use separate electronic fuel control valves and related individualized systems and equipment for all of the burners. The necessity of having to use multiple electronic fuel control valves and individualized control systems also contributes to reduced mechanical reliability, reduced heating consistency across the grill, and increased maintenance costs.